This is a specially designed saddle that straps to a horses head.
It allows a horse rider to ride the horse from atop the head in either a seated position or a standing position. The standing position will accomodate the imposition of ski or snowboard type binding clips.
I envision horse head riding in a Brazilian Jesus Christ statue position from the highest point on the horse would be exhilarating.
I believe that it would be challenging to master staying on the horse face with rapidly changing head elevations especially as the horse transits about uneven ground.-- vfrackis, Aug 22 2017 Vaguely related .... horcycle [normzone, Aug 29 2017] Ain't gonna work. Horses are not designed to carry much weight on their heads - this is one of the reasons why horse brains are so tiny.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Aug 23 2017 [Max] But if you were riding the horse underwater the water would make you somewhat buoyant and so your weight on the horse's head wouldn't be a problem-- hippo, Aug 23 2017 //if you were riding the horse underwater // Ah, but that would require an aquatic horse. They do exist, but are tiny and have no legs.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Aug 23 2017 Also, I'm sure that having horse-racing events underwater would reduce the frequency of serious injuries-- hippo, Aug 23 2017 Is fatal drowning included in the "serious injuries" statistic ?-- 8th of 7, Aug 23 2017 Horses need to be treated with caution, especially the ones that populate the streets of New York. Didn't Simon and Garfunkel once write lyrics about getting a "come on from the horse on 7th Avenue"?-- xenzag, Aug 23 2017 //Horses are not designed to carry much weight on their heads// Horses aren't designed to carry people at all. They need to be trained or "broken" first Animal cruelty? They could be trained to let people ride a top their head and it wouldn't be no more or less cruel than breaking a horse in the first place to let you ride on its back. Have you seen a horse neck horse necks are strong-- vfrackis, Aug 23 2017 [xen] good point, although that was only one horse-- hippo, Aug 23 2017 Do you think a pair of shafts from a cart or chariot, could be adapted into a sort of cantilever to help the horse keep its head up?-- pertinax, Aug 23 2017 Or alternatively, some sort of gallows ... ?-- 8th of 7, Aug 23 2017 The other problem with this is that, if a woman from Essex was riding a horse in this way, you wouldn't be able to tell which way the horse was facing.-- MaxwellBuchanan, Aug 24 2017 //Horses aren't designed to carry people at all. They need to be trained or "broken" first Animal cruelty?//
Strangely horses have a reflex similar to the way an alligator is unable to close its jaw if something is resting on its snout, or the way a shark can be hypnotised by rubbing its nose.With horses, if something is touching the underside of their bellies they can't buck. Natives here used this technique by leading wild horses either into water or snow until they can't buck any more and get used to you being on their back. A bit of positive treat reinforcement and some quality together time later... you've got the equivalent of a dog that doesn't want you to fall off its bare back, will learn knee pressure commands, and will race to you at a whistle because it wishes to please its two-legged treat-bearing herd-buddy that keeps its predators away from its young and feeds it through the winter.
Critters are cool and don't need to be broken to be buddies, just coexisted with.
Breaking a horse is a military efficiency thing, and while once necessary, is now quite sad.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Aug 24 2017 //Horses aren't designed to carry people at all. //
The obvious solution is to employ elephants. Domesticated elephants are perfectly amenable to letting humans sit on them. They learn this when small by watching other adults. They can also lift and manipulate large heavy objects with their trunk, and are tiger-proof.
Elephants. You know it makes sense.-- 8th of 7, Aug 25 2017 Some helium balloons to counter weight? A human featherweight ,racing at a gallop, on a horse that is as free as possible. Sounds good to me.-- wjt, Aug 26 2017 Someone has lost their mind.-- blissmiss, Aug 27 2017 Thank you for the horse-lore, [2fries].-- pertinax, Aug 28 2017 // helium balloons to counter weight? //
Brilliant... apart from the huge amount of aerodynamic drag (even from a streamlined envelope), and the marked lack of downforce keeping the rider attached to the horse...
There are other snags, of course, but we've just listed a couple of the more fundamental ones for now.-- 8th of 7, Aug 28 2017 It's all force vectors, just lean more into the speed.-- wjt, Sep 01 2017 // It's all force vectors, //
This is correct.
// just lean more into the speed. //
How will that stop you flying off, if there is no net downforce ?-- 8th of 7, Sep 01 2017 Isn't the idea a head saddle of some sort? Usually with stirrups.-- wjt, Sep 02 2017 random, halfbakery